Outsourcing Tasks Online – Why you should outsource your digital tasks and jobs to the Fiverr community
To answer that question, first of all we need to consider what is Fiverr, and what does Fiverr do exactly?
Fiverr is a global online marketplace for freelance services and it is really easy to navigate and to use.
So let’s keep it simple, what does Fiverr do?
Fiverr was founded in 2010 by Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger and is actually based in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Fiverr’s basic business concept is very simple – the company provides an online platform for freelancers to offer services to customers worldwide. So the unique idea is that you can buy (or sell) services for just 5 dollars per job performed and have people do stuff for you.
Now Fiverr lists more than 3 million services with prices ranging between $5 to $500.
Micha Kaufman, co-founder and CEO of Fiverr, had the early idea of having a comprehensive online platform where you can find the right person to complete a task you need to accomplish. The idea itself builds upon the need to alleviate the difficulties which many businesses have in finding freelancers to help them.
At the same time, on the other side of the table – the idea caters to many freelancers who have difficulty in finding and connecting with new clients.
The entire process of finding the right person to do a one-time temporary work-project is, in fact, expensive and time consuming – and this gives birth to freelance digital work platforms such as Fiverr.
Outsourcing Tasks Online – Who typically uses Fiverr and why?
The site is primarily used by freelancers to offer services at a cost of $5USD dollars (or multiples thereof).
That moniker though, of being a site for $5 services, is old-hat now. Fiverr has long since moved on and become a site full of high value services and product, often charging far in excess of the early $5 price tags, but all at market competitive price points to fit all manner of budgets.
So Fiverr is especially recommended for people who need to do a lot of time-consuming, often repetitive tasks, but can’t afford to spend their time on them. Typically this lends it well to people who run blogs and can’t manage all the articles themselves or who simply don’t have the competencies to have that job done, like businesses who ask for a well-designed business card.
A good example is the BuildInstructions.com website, which is a hobby site run by a small group of Warhammer enthusiasts. The team at Build instructions can make use of Freelancer Services to easily outsource tasks like the build of their WooCommerce (WordPress) website, editing of their images, and data entry for their vast library of PDF downloads.
Statistics show that the Fiverr marketplace is dominated by young adults (only 2% of sellers are over the age of 55) although the company itself has stated that the rate of sellers aged 55–64 is growing fast.
This is due to the ever increasing popularity that Fiverr is drawing from businesses and the fact that more and more people are interested in its services.
Outsourcing Tasks Online – What jobs and tasks can you get done on Fiverr?
Within Fiverr you can find a two-sided platform where people can buy and sell their competences to fulfil a great variety of tasks. These range from Graphics & Design, Digital Marketing, Writing & Translation, Video & Animation making, Music & Audio editing, web Programming & Tech, to Business and lifestyle counselling, and many others.
So Fiverr itself offers a service being the very marketplace where supply and demand meet and businesses can outsource certain tasks to freelancers and professionals in order to have a job done.
Whether you’re looking for help with translating a document or building a WordPress blogging website, or a professional acoustic drum track for your song, you’ve come to the right place – Fiverr is really easy to use.
Outsourcing Tasks Online – How expensive is Fiverr to use?
Each service offered within Fiverr is called a “Gig”, while the word “Fiver” means 5 US dollars, which is the lowest price at which you can buy a Gig.
Fiverr is based on the early unique selling point that you can buy services for as little as just $5 dollars (this is where the name comes from).
However Gigs on Fiverr can go up to thousands of dollars depending on the kind of task and the quality of the work. This can also be made more expensive by Gig Extras. These are basically add-on options to add extra value to your task (like extra words to your blog article, additional artwork revisions, or a quick delivery within 24 hours, etc.).
Outsourcing Tasks Online – How to use Fiverr
You may want to start buying or selling Gigs on Fiverr, but you don’t know how it really works?
Well, Fiverr is a very simple platform where sellers can build their profile adding all relevant informations about themselves, starting from the profile photo, a short bio summary and their competences and can do tests to ascertain their level of expertise.
Sellers can publish in their profile the “Gigs” by filling out the form with what tasks they believe they can fulfil and all the relevant information about the service they provide.
From the buyer’s point of view, the platform is exactly as easy – a potential buyer can browse among all the Gigs to find the one that suits him best or can make a public request, at which Fiverr’s freelance sellers will respond describing the details of their offer.
Once you buy a Gig or negotiate an offer, all you need to do is describe in detail what kind of job you need to have done and as you send all the requirements. After that, the delivery countdown will start – meaning the seller will have a certain amount of time to fulfil the task (depending on the agreement or the timing of the Gig itself).
You can always ask for a quick delivery, and adding this will usually cost a minimum of an extra $5 dollars on the final order cost.
Outsourcing Tasks Online – Can you trust people on Fiverr?
A very common question by people who want to approach the Fiverr community or are at their first experience, is “can I trust people on Fiverr?”.
“What if they don’t deliver the project in time? Or don’t deliver at all? How can I know if a person is reliable?”
The answer is obviously that like in many other online marketplaces, whether you’re buying goods or services, also on Fiverr you need to choose carefully your Gig Seller.
From my very own experience I can say that I have never been disappointed with Fiverr’s sellers and their services provided.
Of course, there can be cases in which people may be unreliable, but I can assure you that this is the exception and not the rule.
Furthermore, if you follow this simple advices you will increase the chances to find the person who will do an excellent job for you:
- Expecially if you are on a budget (whether it’s money or time we are speaking about) I highly recommend contacting the seller before buying the Gig, to see if he’s active and able to do the task for you. Talking to the seller is also good adivce to know the person, ask what he can do for you and negotiate all the details of your order,
- Pay attention to the “Gig rating” and to the good or bad reviews it has received. If you choose a Gig with 100% positive reviews (and pay attention to recent reviews) you can be sure they will deliver on time and expect good quality… you won’t be disappointed!
- Don’t rely much on ads, especially on graphic design. Fiverr has been criticized for advertising ads on cheap graphic services, saying “You’re paying too much for design”. But don’t worry, trust the clients’ honest reviews and you’ll be fine.
Outsourcing Tasks Online – In Conclusion… why should you use Fiverr?
There are so many reasons why Fiverr is the optimal choice for outsourcing a very broad range of services, I will summarize them in the following:
- Convenience – the ultimate truth. Fiverr is so convenient. You need a boring, time-consuming job done but you have to focus on other, more important things in your life or in your job, so you can’t do it yourself? Within Fiverr you can easily find someone that will complement and assist you and that will promptly do the task for you in no time, for 5 dollars.
- Time – how many times do we feel like there is no time left to do all the things we need to do, and we feel oppressed and overwhelmed by all of it? Delegating some of the tasks that you need to have done will provide you more free time to focus on more important things.
- Cost – sometimes we don’t outsource tasks because maybe we don’t know someone with the right skills or if we do, they ask a lot of money for a simple one-time project. On Fiverr you can find a cost-effective solution to the problem: in fact, the minimum price for your tasks starts at 5 dollars, and you can choose and find just the right person to do the job for you.
- Quality – As previously discussed, sometimes we lack the right skills to do a certain job, and so the job remains undone for weeks or months (if it’s something without a clear deadline), we procrastinate, but the job needs to be done anyway. Did I mention that on Fiverr you can find the right person to do the job for you? Well, professional freelancers from allover the world are available on Fiverr to put their skills and competences to action and provide you the best customer experience!
- Trust – if you have an issue with an order or you find the seller didn’t provide you the service described in the Gig, you can always contact Fiverr’s Resolution Centre to work things out with your seller or contacting the Customer Support.
Outsourcing Tasks Online – Final Thoughts on Fiverr and the Freelance business model
In conclusion, Fiverr’s basic concept and business goal is very clear and easy to understand.
Fiverr International Ltd. provides a platform that is an excellent support for those who have an existing business or are thinking to start a business, giving its clients the best user experience possible, with an easy to navigate website and providing a cost effective and reliable way of getting your tasks done.
Fiverr is also the pioneer of this new business model, owning a large part of the market and being a trust-worthy and reliable corporation.
This has opened a new avenue for sellers to become freelancers to offer their service and have a new source of income, doing what they are good at.
When outsourcing tasks online, you might also want to keep in mind how you are going to be managing and motivating your remote freelancers, possibly whilst working from home yourself. For more on this – tenxblog.walshsamuel.com has some great content and insightful read.